


Hanged Nightmare

by Samuraiter



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1892895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/pseuds/Samuraiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Naoki, there is more to coming to terms with a death in the family than anybody in the Investigation Team can see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanged Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsonfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsonfire/gifts).



> This piece of introspection comes from a segment of the Izanami myth. Character death is listed in the warnings because this addresses a canonical passing directly.

Hard to sleep during the night since that day, not because exhaustion is not there for Naoki like a concrete barrier at the end of the day, but because the fog waits for him as soon as he closes his eyes. Not that he is aware of it during the day. He remembers nothing of it from one day to the next. There is only discomfort, a sense of dread chewing at the edges of his consciousness like a spider, giving him a chill, but disappearing as soon as he attempts to look for it. But then, he sleeps, and it comes back to him, as if the dream had never stopped – the fog, and the voice inside it.

The voice is as heavy as the fog, pushing him down as if made of lead, and yet it is the voice of a mother – not _his_ mother, but _a_ mother, a concept that only made sense in his dreams. "How many steps are you going to take tonight?" As if teaching him to walk, but also teasing him, taunting him. "The first night, you turned back as soon as I asked you." He wants to shut the voice from his head, but it is too heavy, too strong, and he cannot ignore it. "But, every night since then, you see more, if only a little. Every night, you stay on your feet for a little longer. Are you prepared to see the truth, Naoki?"

_Truth_. He wants to say _no_. From the beginning, he had been aware that the answer lay beyond the fog, and he thought that he might already know it, but trying to think upon it offers the same results as trying to remember his dreams, and he finds himself planting one foot in front of the other, the road before him – he has the impression of red clay, as old as the earth and all its secrets – sloping downwards. "You ask yourself why you feel the way you do. You ask yourself why you do not feel _more_ than you do. The answer lies ahead of you." Teaching him and teasing him, drawing him forwards.

The road turns. "Open your eyes again, and you will remember nothing of this ... at first. Your mind will not. But your soul will, your heart will – in time, your mind will wake up to these things, but you must first learn them deep inside yourself, on those levels where there are no words, no justifications, no reasons, only _you_ ... and the truth." The voice gains a wistful note. "Most can no longer feel this part of themselves, Naoki. Most have forgotten, have lost their way. And many of those who can do not heed my call." From wistful to sinister. "But you are not like them, are you? You have the curiosity."

Another turn. The heaviness in the air – in the fog – is almost unbearable, as if trying to steal his breath, but the voice comforts him. "This is as far as most are able to go. The road stops here, and there is a cave that lies beyond." A strange tone, as if she is not telling him the entire truth. "In there, you will find the truth, and you will not be able to leave until you accept it." Why did that sound familiar to him? Had he heard it before, perhaps in a story? Or did it resonate deep inside his being, like the voice did? "You will have to act from your heart. Hesitate, and the fog will come and take you."

A choice. He _does_ have a choice. If he does not enter the cave, he risks nothing, he is safe from the fog, but the truth is denied him. But he did not come all this way along the red clay road to turn back at the end, and the voice is aware of that. He takes another step, the heaviest he has taken so far. Her presence recedes from him, as does the fog, only enough to let him see the entrance to the cave, small and round, like a hole bored in the earth by a giant worm. He has to bend down to go inside, as if submitting to the unseen. A chill passes through him, and the entrance seals itself behind him.

Darkness, too close for comfort, stifling. Impossible to tell up from down, forward from backward. Then, his eyes adjust, and there is a gray radiance, so dim as to almost be imperceptible. Against it, a silhouette, long-haired and familiar, back turned to him. Saki? His sister? He stumbles towards her. Difficult to breathe, and the passage is too narrow, as if the earth itself is grasping at his flesh. Every step takes all the effort he can muster, but he is soon close to her. Still only a silhouette, turned away from him. He wants to talk to her, wants to say her name, but he has no voice, only presence.

Impossible to say if she turns towards him, or if he steps around her to see her face to face. Saki? ... Then, it all comes home to him. The closeness and darkness of the earth is the closeness and darkness of the grave. Is she there with him? A new heaviness fills him, not the weight of the fog, but the weight of fear, gathering inside him like a disease. He remembers, in the midst of it, what the voice told him. He must not avert his gaze. He _has_ to look at her. He forces his eyes to focus, and he looks into her face. Saki? ... No. Not Saki any longer. Only a dead body. No heart. No soul. Nothing at all.

He can breathe again, and it is a deep, single breath, filling him with life. He blinks once, and he is outside in the fog again, but it pulls back from him, as if afraid to touch him again. The voice returns. "So simple a realization, yet so difficult for so many. They encounter the same question in their lives, and they can never answer it, trapped there, as dead, in a way, as those no longer with them." No longer anything sinister, only the voice of a mother. "Are you ready to move on, Naoki?" He nods, and the fog recedes. There is only light, a sense of being lifted, and the bliss of wakefulness.

That day, consciously remembering nothing, he goes to Yū Narukami to talk.

**END**.


End file.
